This invention relates to a means for drawing-in warp yarns into heddles when the heddles are remote from a loom.
Generally, the drawing-in of warp yarns into heddles while the heddles are mounted in a loom harness frame is not a great problem, as long as the loom is relatively narrow. However, some looms may be as wide as thirty feet or more. On a very wide loom, there may be as many as thirty thousand warp yarns which have to be drawn in through heddles. When it becomes necessary to draw in the heddles of such a wide loom, because of a change in beams, a change in the weave, etc., the drawing-in of all of the heddles may take weeks.
During the drawing-in, the loom must be shut down, thereby causing costly production losses. It would thus be desirable to provide a means whereby the time required is reduced for providing a wide loom with drawn-in heddles.
Attempts at reducing the time required to draw in a wide loom have been made, and in one particular instance, the heddle rod of the harness frames were made up in a plurality of segments wherein the entire heddle rod could be removed one segment at a time. The drawing-in of the heddles for a particular segment took place away from the loom. The beam and the heddles would then be transported to the loom with the warp yarns already drawn-in. The drawn-in heddles would have to be interlaced between various rolls and mechanisms on the loom so that the heddles could be positioned adjacent the harness frame for insertion therein. This is a very tedious and cumbersome operation, itself oftentimes causing breakage in the warp yarns due to their engagement with various mechanisms carried on the loom. Further, the releasable fastening of the heddle rod to the harness frame slats in segments reduced the deflection strength of the harness frames as compared to the harness frames having non-segmented heddle rods riveted to the harness frame slats.
The ability to draw-in the heddles remote from the harness frame of a loom allows the heddles to be drawn-in prior to an anticipated loom shut down. Thus, when the loom is shut down, the already drawn-in heddles can be loaded in the loom harness frames much quicker than if the heddles were drawn-in while still in the loom. Having the heddles drawn-in before the loom is shut down allows for the loom to be provided with drawn-in heddles in a matter of days instead of weeks as would take if the heddles were drawn in while on the loom.